In airborne vehicles there is a high demand for electrical power which is distributed among a multitude of different electrically operated aircraft components. Demand for electrical power is highly volatile depending on system dynamics, human behaviour and vehicle operation state. Considering the constraints in system weight, required implementation space and wiring requirements, it is a complex task to fulfill all electrical power needs while keeping the power generation and distribution system in operation without exceeding the capabilities of the system at any point in time during operation of the airborne vehicle.
If a fault occurs in the power generation system, the maximum acceptable load may be reduced in order to avoid an overload, for example by shedding specific loads or electrical bus bars. Such shedding procedures are usually globally applied, and all components or equipments being serviced with the same shed bus bar are switched off while different approaches may be used to keep the noticeable effect on the shed loads as small as possible. One approach may be to shed a minimum number of components or equipments to avoid an overload of the power generation system.
In typical aircraft system designs, the electrical power generation system is furthermore designed to provide the sum of the maxima of all connected equipments. As long as not being precluded by the operational state of the vehicle, electrical loads from equipments may occur at any time and independently from load requirements of other equipments. This allows for many electrical equipments to be activated at the same time, even if there is no specific use case tied to that situation. For example, the operational state of a vehicle such as an aircraft precludes the activation of the cargo loading system during flight. But if an electrical equipment is activated by a human such as a passenger of the aircraft, the operational state of the aircraft is an insufficient parameter to predict the activation of such an equipment.
The document EP 1 387 460 A1 discloses a power supply arrangement for the galley of an airborne vehicle which utilizes control command provided by a control unit that manages the power consumption of galley equipment depending on individual operating conditions of the equipment.
The document DE 195 02 786 C2 discloses a method for protecting an electrical network from overload by inhibiting the activation of electrical equipment which would else cause an overload.
The document US 2008/0027592 A1 discloses an avionic system and architecture with integrated power management that assigns electrical loads to distribution nodes according to their criticality level for the safety of the aircraft.